North Korean Hackers Built 16 Gambling Sites, Seoul Court Jails Three Sellers

The ring's leader earned about $17.6 million selling the sites to South Korean operators and passed roughly 30% of it to hackers tied to Pyongyang's spy and cyber units.

Francis Gable

13/11/26 · 2 minNovember 13, 2026 · 2 min read

A Seoul court on Nov. 12 sentenced three South Korean men to three to four years in prison for helping sell illegal gambling sites built by North Korean hackers, Yonhap News Agency and broadcaster SBS reported.

The ring sold 16 gambling sites to South Korean operators between 2022 and 2024, according to Yonhap. Its leader, a man surnamed Kim, earned about 23.5 billion won ($17.6 million) and sent more than 7 billion won ($5.2 million), roughly 30% of the take, to the hackers.

Court Rejects Brother's Claim He Didn't Know

The Seoul Central District Court gave Kim's younger brother four years. The two other men received three years each.

Two were also convicted under South Korea's National Security Act, pe the Korea JoongAng Daily.

The brother said he did not know the developers were North Korean. The court pointed to North Korean words in the Telegram chats he joined, including sonjeonhwa, the North's term for a mobile phone.

The judges said the case risked substantial harm to national security and cited the wide social damage caused by online gambling crimes.

Ringleader's Five-Year Sentence Is Already Final

Kim's own five-year sentence became final in September after the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal, the JoongAng Daily reported. He met hackers from North Korea's General Bureau 313 in China in 2016 and commissioned gambling software, including a mobile version of the slot game Sea Story.

Kim's helpers advertised the software on X and Telegram, pitching low fees because North Korean hackers had built it.

In February 2024, South Korea's spy agency said a 15-person North Korean IT team in Dandong, China, sold gambling sites to a South Korean crime ring for $5,000 each, Radio Free Asia reported. In October, Chungnam police said a supply chain in Vietnam and Cambodia built 188 betting sites for a record $17.3 billion gambling network.

The Nov. 12 rulings are first-trial verdicts. Kim's own case went through an appeals court and the Supreme Court before his sentence became final.

Treat gambling as entertainment you pay for. 18+, and if it stops feeling like entertainment, help exists at BeGambleAware and GamCare.